Patrick McCormack was born in Bromley, England in 1958. He was educated at The King’s School Canterbury, and read History at Keble College, Oxford, where he became fascinated by the Dark Ages, the great blank pages of Britain’s history.

With the benefit of a fine education behind him, he has at various times in his life scrubbed shelves in a brewery canteen, taught in a boys’ school, laboured on building sites, sold new books in London, sold secondhand books in Devon, been a barman and worked for Europe’s largest conservation charity.

His first novel, The Last Companion, was published in 1997.

He lives in Devon, on the edge of Dartmoor, and is currently working on a series of novels about Hengest, the legendary leader of the first Anglo-Saxon settlers in Britain.